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Candide is thus very much a story for our times: one of confronting a succession of crises Femmes Sundance II Gris of representation. The world is presented, or rather represented, to Candide Femmes Sundance II Marron in a number of systematic, philosophical ways, of which the most insistently reductive is Pangloss's Optimism. Yet the inchoate, arbitrary nature of events in the world, as experienced by Candide, gives the lie to these systems of representation and pitches them into crisis. And, as the etymology suggests, crises are the moments par excellence for critical autonomy to assert itself, for more intelligent questions to be asked, for codes to be broken (and definitively rejected where necessary), for self-awareness to challenge our own collusion in the processes of deceptive and oppressive system-building, and for alternative, tentative interpretations to emerge. And once again, as in Candide, so in the arts seminar in which it is read. When our Femmes Sundance II Noir own collective endeavours are threatened and shaken by events seemingly beyond our control or comprehension – a natural disaster, a financial crash, a political upheaval – it Femmes Ultra Short Beige is then that the critical practices of the arts class empower us to make sense where little or none seems to be left. More than any other area of study, the arts and humanities teach us to negotiate and shape the shifting historical, political, philosophical, discursive and visual fields of meaning constituting our understanding of the world around us. A fortiori then, when these fields of meaning appear to disintegrate, it is the arts and humanities students who can best recognize and manage such crises of representation. To give a few examples: in the face of a humanitarian crisis, they provide a voice for the voiceless; in an economic crisis, they are least surprised by the fluid, illusory nature of credit; in a political crisis, they propose alternative modes of action, and can draw on their own democratic practices to do so. In the twenty-first century, the critical autonomy gained in the arts classroom may prove to be at the very least a fundamental survival skill, and at best, an individual and collective guide into a more enlightened, humane future.